Welcome to the Misadventures of Widowhood blog!

In January of 2012 my soul mate of 42 years passed away after nearly 12 years of living with severe disabilities due to a stroke. I survived the first year after Don’s death doing what most widows do---trying to make sense of my world turned upside down. The pain and heartache of loss, my dark humor, my sweetest memories and, yes, even my pity parties are well documented in this blog.

Now that I’m a "seasoned widow" the focus of my writing has changed. I’m still a widow looking through that lens but I’m also a woman searching for contentment, friends and a voice in my restless world. Some people say I have a quirky sense of humor that shows up from time to time in this blog. Others say I make some keen observations about life and growing older. I say I just write about whatever passes through my days---the good, bad and the ugly. Comments welcome and encouraged. Let's get a dialogue going! Jean

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Culinary Class - Thai Cooking

Last fall at an auction I won two expensive cooking lessons
at a fancy place with a beautiful view of a tree lined ravine with a fast
rolling river at the bottom. It seems I was one of the few people at the
auction who recognized the bargain price the classes were going for. I was
thrilled when I won. Last night I cashed one of the certificates in on a three
hour class on Thai cooking. Let me tell you, I was a fish out of water with all
the foodies in our little group as we sat on tall stools around a chef’s stainless
steel topped table. But I was honest about my lack of cooking background so I’m
sure my naïve questions amused my companions whose questions were far above my
skill set. The chef had a sous-chef who did all the chopping and running. He
was a good looking guy of---I’m guessing---Italian descent and I wanted to take
him home, stand him in the corner of the kitchen to come to attention whenever
I need assistance.

They started out with Pork Satay and Peanut Sauce, then they
progressed with putting on a pot of Tom Kha Gai soup. While that was on the
stove they made Phat Thai and ended with Sticky Rice with Mangoes for the
dessert round. We were munching and drinking wine the whole time---well, I wasn’t
drinking, but the others were and it was fun to watch them all get buzzed while
exchanging foodie stories as the night advanced. I learned two things: 1) To
do Thai cooking you need to keep the following ingredients in the house: brown
sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and soy sauce. And 2) Thai cooking has five
flavor profiles: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and spicy. Thai cooking is good at
isolating those different profiles in the same dish so you continue to get unexpected
flavor bursts as you eat. All in all, I had a great time and a to-die-for meal.

Will I ever make any of this stuff at home? No, but at least
I’ll appreciate my take-out Thai more. But I probably will get some coconut
milk, lemongrass paste, scallions and chicken and play around with inventing my
own soup concoction. Recipes are for sissies. Or so my mother taught me by
example which is probably one of the reasons why cooking freaks me out so much.
It’s always an 'adventure' into the unknown.

As usual for me, I took my camera but it never made it out
of my purse. The stock photo at the top is pretty close to the Phat Thai I ate
last night. Oh and by the way, I sat next to a guy close to my age who was
there alone, too, as were three other women. So there is no reason for widows to fear going alone to classes like
this. The only couple in the group were young and are getting married next summer.
The guy I liked, the girl reminded me of a few bridezillas I dealt with back in
my former life.

“It’s going to be MY wedding,” she announced at one point, “not
his and he doesn’t get a say in anything.”

The rest of us were all old enough to have grandchildren and
we looked at each other at that statement. If I had been drinking, too, I
would have been tempted to ask the others if they wanted to place bets on how
long their marriage would last with that attitude. One of the other women did
say, “Marriage is an 80% 20% deal. 80% of the time you love each other and 20%
of the time you want to kill each other.”

Then I said, “I agree except the longer I was knew my
husband that equation changed to 90%, 10%” and others agreed that was true for
them as well.

Bridezilla piped up, “For us, its 50%, 50%.” I looked at her
would-be spouse and hoped he’d could read my mind because I was telling him to
run for the hills. Seriously, you shouldn’t have to work that hard at love! The
only time I had to work that hard at love the relationships didn’t last. Am I
just too old to remember how it is with young people or am I just making myself
feel superior by thinking I can accurately read the signs when a relationship is
doomed from the start? We widows do tend to have thick rose-colored lenses in
our glasses when it comes to remembering our other half and our shared romantic
past.

8 comments:

Wow! a night to remember, even if the cooking lesson isn't put to use. Thai food is pretty healthy, but by the sound of it, it requires the Italian. The grilling class is more up my alley. I'll keep an eye out for these near me. I did go to one at William Sonoma that was pretty cool. Grilling is so simple that I actually do it.

Is this Bridezilla saying she loves her fiancé just 50% of the time? Yes, sirree, RUN! Maybe she was hearing 80% love part as 80% of the workload, if she was buzzed, really buzzed? Too bad we can't get the follow up on that story line.

She was saying she only loved him 50% of the time and it was early on in the night shortly after introductions so she wasn't buzzed yet. She was a whiner and he does all the cooking at their house. But when it came time to get up to get them more drinks at the adjoining bar it was him who had to do it even though she said she was only there because of him and didn't have any interest learning the techniques being taught. She was the only one there who wasn't having a visible good time.

I have fallen in love with coconut milk. It was fun to find out what ingredients makes the flavors I love in Thai cooking. The chef passed things around so we could smell and feel the various spices, liquids, etc. You can'[t get that from a video online.